What is an Enterprise Network?

As the name indicates, an enterprise network represents the network of an enterprise/corporate/office.

It typically consists of one or more internal office networks along with provision for remote employees to access the office networks through the public data network.

A typical enterprise network diagram is given below:

As seen from the diagram,

The office network would have desktops/laptops, lot of servers like file servers, mail servers, web servers etc. One or more L2 switches provide connectivity between these end stations.

Employees, working from home, would typically access the office network via. a Remote Access Server(RAS). The RAS would primarily authenticate the remote end stations before allowing access to the office network.

The office network would use a gateway router to connect it to the public data network (internet).

Enterprise networks could even be spread across multiple geographical locations connected together by private leased lines